Take Charge of Your Money by Building a Budget – 043

Take Charge of Your Money by Building a Budget – 043

In episode 43, we are digging into the details of building a budget and how it isn’t so scary after all.

We also check in to see how Jenny and I are feeling about this month’s financial awareness challenge which is monitoring spending and creating a budget with the Mint app. I hope that you are playing along with us.

I’m diggin’ one of Gretchen’s podcasts and Jenny’s diggin’ a podcast by Brooke Castillo

Jenny’s win is about her new fireplace and my learn is a reminder to check in with your accountability buddy when the going get’s tough.

Tune in and Listen Below

What You’ll Hear (and don’t want to miss!)

1:14: Jenny and I check in with each other to see how the challenge is going. I share my thoughts on how we can increase financial awareness to prevent financial aches and pains in a way that is pretty similar to how I encourage my patients to increase their postural awareness to prevent aches and pains in their bodies.

5:07: Budgets: budgets get a bad rap. We break it down here and show you how you can create a spending plan to tell your money what to do!

10:40: Who Are You Anyway?: “Do you often make impulse purchases?” and “Are you saving up for something right now?”

16:28: What Are You Diggin’ Lately? I’m diggin’ a podcast by Gretchen that will help you learn about the one coin loophole and Jenny’s diggin’ a podcast by Brooke Castillo about taming urges related to bad habits.

22:59: You Win or You Learn: Jenny’s win is related to her new fireplace and my learn is a reminder to check in with your accountability partners when you are having a tough day and you need some support or a kick in the butt.

26:48: We wrap it up for this week. Next week it’s time for our book report. We will be sharing our thoughts on this month’s book which is The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. We will also be checking in on our 19 for 2019 lists. Since we are more than a quarter of the way through the year, it checks out that we should be a quarter of the way through our lists. We’ll find out next week!

Key Quotes:

Many of us have been taught to think of a budget as a weapon of mass destruction, a tool that sets us up for self-flagellation. The self-defeating thought process is often, “I’m going to set a budget and beat myself up if I can’t keep to it, so I’m not going to do it at all.” It is similar to a diet that you ignore and instead of altering your approach, you mentally destroy yourself as you reach for a doughnut or some candy.Instead…. think of a budget as a diagnostic tool. It is no different from going to the doctor and having the nurse take your temperature and blood pressure. They are establishing a baseline for your health. A budget is a baseline for your financial wellness.

The doctor doesn’t beat you up if you have high blood pressure. It is discovery. It gives the doctor the information needed to fix the problem. Look at a budget the same way — it’s diagnostic.

If a doctor told you to exercise regularly or reduce your sodium intake, you would listen.So try to think about your soon-to-be-born budget a different way. It is not a setup for failure; it is a prescription for long-term success.

Creating a budget allows you to get an understanding of where your money is allocated and what changes will help you get what you most want out of life. Or said another way….Budgets are tools that allow us to get intentional about where we are spending, so that we can do even more with our money. You can even look at a budget as a permission slip for spending. (One finance expert online reframed the word budget to be a ‘spending plan’)

That’s right, creating a budget can cause happiness, not stress!

Share your thoughts… We’d love to hear from you!

What was your biggest take away from this episode? Do you follow a budget? Why or why not? Do you think that you will give it a go now that you’ve heard that we are giving it a try?

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The Improvement Project podcast is hosted by Dr. Peggy Malone and Jenny Couse. Peggy is a health care provider who encourages her patients every day to create better habits associated with their health and wellness. She is wife to the hilarious and heavily bearded John, with whom she takes many adventures. Dr. Peggy is also a human being on a mission to create better habits for herself and by doing so, she hopes to inspire others to take up the challenge with her! Jenny is a marketing professional in the international trade sector. She and her husband Jeff are parents to hilarious 5 year old Ethan. Her year of monthly habit resolutions in 2015 piqued her interests in how habits are created and best kept.

Join them weekly to explore how to create healthy habits that stick on the journey to becoming better humans!

#TheImprovementProject

Until next time,

Let’s get to work on improving your most important project. That’s YOU! Stay focused and get after it!